We flirted online until I pulled out all the stops. I wrote a multi-page email with 12 levels of footnotes culminating in a "put up or shut up" call to action, and then I put down my phone and decided I'd never hear from her again.

The next day, I got a reply with a phone number and 2 words. "Giddy Up."

I read it and laughed. I had to meet this girl.

---

It was laundry day for me. So when I showed up wearing my worst pair of grey pants with paint stains on the thighs and an oversized flannel my dad gave me, I assumed this would go poorly and end quickly.

Instead, we spent the afternoon trading stories in the coffee shop until we built enough of an appetite for meatballs. Then we walked around Brooklyn until the city grew quiet and the sky started fading from black to purple.

She was smarter than me or anyone else I'd ever dated. She was compassionate. Curious. She had great taste in music. In art. She loved to read. She loved dogs and had a pitbull in her apartment.

I tried to walk her home, but she said it was creepy, so she stayed ten steps ahead of me. I followed until I saw her go inside.

Within weeks, we were together every day. Until we weren't...

Our story began as a weekday afternoon coffee date at Blue Bottle in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early fall of 2014.

Coffee that day led to happy hour that evening, which led to dinner, then post-dinner drinks, then a late night stroll along the waterfront promenade staring at the NYC skyline. Cue: rom-com soundtrack.

Meshach insisted he walk me home, like a true Southern gentleman, so that I would arrive safely. Being the staunchly-independent, slightly-jaded Northerner, who'd lived in Brooklyn for over a decade, I vehemently refused that offer, insisting that he was following me home at that late hour so he could promptly murder me in the basement of my apartment building.

We said a cordial good-bye at my doorstep after 12 magical hours without a follow-up plan.

(Spoiler: date 2 happened 2 days later)

Over the next few months, I was shutting down my company and starting to tour again. I piled onto a train and spent months on end playing shows across the country.

Back in Brooklyn, we'd reconnect, trying to pick up where we left off. I knew she didn't like it. The constant back and forth. My non-commitment. It was wearing on both of us.

Eventually, it was time to leave - for both of us.

Alex was at Girls Prep, finishing the school year, and I spent days at her apartment packing up, planning the move, and trying to figure out how not to break up.

Instead, we spent two days on the road. Driving out of New York, sitting in traffic, and trying to make small talk.

In North Carolina, I got out and watched her drive away. I sat in the hotel room with my guitar, crying through the same chord over and over and singing to myself... "You made Brooklyn cry..."

We spent as much time together as we could over the next several months, bouncing around the city, seeing live music, eating Vanessa's dumplings and Caracas arepas, watching football and learning how vastly different our upbringings were.

We fell in love, but kept our guards up, as we both were unsure of a future together.

Meshach wanted to pursue his music career full-time and would leave for weeks on end to cross the country by train, playing guitar and crooning to all who would listen. I grew tired of saying goodbye repeatedly, while also growing more tired of the New York City grind, ready for a drastic change of pace and environment.

On June 29, 2016, Meshach and I packed up my Jeep with all my belongings and my beloved pitbull, Bosco, and drove away from Brooklyn together, knowing, but not saying, that this would be the end to more than one chapter.

Below is Meshach's beautiful recap of what happened next.

Grab a tissue, it's worth the watch:

Watch the video here.

In January, 2021, a year into various stages of Covid lockdown and travel restrictions, I coerced 4 of my girlfriends to fly to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with me to celebrate my 40th birthday.

From the balcony of our oceanfront hotel, Marina pulled out her laptop and pressed play on a compilation video she made of my family and friends sending me virtual birthday love.

Meshach's face appeared on the screen and it was the first time I'd seen him in 2 years. (Shout-out to Laina & Marina for getting that clip!)

Through streams of tears I listened to his heartfelt message and immediately realized he was my person.

I called him as soon as I landed back home in Denver.

We kept in touch over the two years we were apart. For a while, we spoke on the phone every day - until we didn't.

When the pandemic hit, I found myself living in a cabin off-grid outside of Seattle. I was miserable and exhausted. The world was burning down around us, sometimes literally.

So when Alex called me, I was thrown for a loop. She called to say that she was too. She wanted to go back to talking every day. So did I.

Having ignited the 2nd chapter of our love story five years later in February, 2021 in Austin, it was only fitting that we relocated here together the following spring.

Sunday, March 30, 2025 (our wedding date) will mark our 3 year Austin-versary!

We spent a year on the phone every day.

I'd moved to South Texas at the end of the pandemic, so Alex came to San Benito to see the teepee I'd made out of bamboo in my backyard. I went to Denver to meet her new rescue dog, Reggie. We met up in Austin to see if we could live in Texas.

In March of 2022, we moved in two trips. My family helped me move in a few days. Then I flew to Denver to help Alex. She drove her Jeep Cherokee stuffed to the ceiling with luggage. I drove the UHaul with everything else.

By April, we were moved into a sprawling 2-story rental that would have devoured her apartment and my house in just the bottom floor. We suddenly had more space than either of us had ever lived in and a backyard for Reggie. Eventually, we added Judo, and our nuclear family had begun.

After 18 months of overpaying rent for an oversized house and an exceptionally overpriced electric bill, we decided it was time to level up our adulting and throw out an offer to buy an adorable fixer-upper less than a mile up the road from where we were currently living.

The offer was accepted and the house was ours! We got to work (very literally) gutting the outdated kitchen down to the studs to create a custom, open-concept layout.

Meshach demo'd it all, installed every piece of new wood (including designing and building the custom island), rewired the entire house's electrical system and got the whole house up to code. I painted cabinets and walls, helped install light fixtures and learned how to drywall.

I thought I knew how to "do sheetrock." I'd worked on a construction crew in my teens, and I'd helped my parents with renovations and add-ons through the years. But when Alex told me she wanted this house, we walked in together, and all I could see were wall-to-wall changes to make.

Cabinets needed to be ripped out and replaced. All of the appliances were dying. The light fixtures, light switches, power outlets, and probably most of the wiring were overdue for serious refreshing. The whole house had popcorn ceilings.

We started with the demo of the kitchen. Patricia helped us pick out paint and was there the day we discovered termites in the framing of the cabinets. We set up a job site, and for 2 months, I spent my days at the new house while Alex worked from her office at the rental. We changed everything in sight.

By the time we moved in, the house was undeniably "ours."

I planned it for months. At my parents' house for Christmas, I sneaked a ring from my parents and waited for the moment that Alex was at the grocery store so I could ask for her mom's blessing.

My mom's one piece of advice for the proposal was to find somewhere that I knew would "always be there". "Somewhere you can go back to."

In January, we flew to New Orleans for the Saints' last home game of the season. We landed on Friday night and had a birthday dinner at the Bourbon House. It had been raining all day, so when we stepped outside, we were struck by the fact that the city was silent.

The rain had stopped, so we had the city to ourselves. I had the ring in my pocket and the poetry on my phone. I made excuses for taking back streets around the French Quarter and acted surprised when we saw the lights of the entrance to Armstrong Park.

When we got to the entrance, the streets were empty. I finished the poem just as we got to the arch, and I knelt for the big moment. She said yes, we kissed, and we turned to walk away just at the moment that a couple across the street came running up, exclaiming, "oh my god! So beautiful. We got all of that on camera. Do you want the pictures?!?"